


Waves

by where_am_i_am_here



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mute Runner Five, Non-Binary Runner Five, Other, POV Third Person, could be read as romance but it's not explicit, stoic runner five isn't so stoic, zrs5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/where_am_i_am_here/pseuds/where_am_i_am_here
Summary: Sometimes there are burdens that just aren't yours to bear. But seeing the ones close to you having to live with them doesn't feel easy either.---Trying to fill a gap in 5x40. So obviously major spoiler warnings unless you've finished Season 5!





	

Five flinched hard as the shot echoed through the air. It happened a little faster than they expected. 

The runner had turned away from them, staring into the zombie water pit as if there was any answer to be found in there. There wasn’t even a question to begin with. This would happen, now. And Five knew there was no way to stop it. It had to happen. That’s why the runner gave him what he asked for, even though everything in them rioted, shouting ‘You don’t have to!’, just like Jody said. ‘Let me do it!’ But it did have to be him.

Sam didn’t hand the gun back to Five after it was done. 

The runner was in a haze. Numb, thinking about the moment before the one big wave to destroy all, where all the water pulls back from the beach, hundreds, maybe even thousands of meters, all the tons of massive force collecting themselves just to return in a matter of seconds, finally break at the shore and just… wash it all away. 

Five watched the sea. The water was pulling back. Far away. It kept going wrong, backwards. There was no way they could stop it.

Sam was talking again, they just realized. Something about Maxine’s maternity dress …? His voice was shaking, almost unnoticeable. His hands were shaking, too, as he forced them into fists, turning away from the dead body on the ground. It didn’t stop the shivering and it didn’t matter anyway. “Let’s run.”

So they did.

What else could they do after all?

Five’s legs moving on auto-pilot, Sam somehow kept up. It hurt Five to look at him. It already hurt before, back when they found him with Ian, back when they heard him screaming through the headset, back when he told Five not to come for him and Janine. It hurt the most now, though, seeing it all … piled up, in a way. The blood, too much of it, the way he was holding himself, the way he … pulled himself together so closely that Five was afraid of what would happen if he let go for just a moment. How was he still going on? How was this even possible? 

All the water was gone now, beyond the horizon. 

Five waved quickly to pull Sam’s attention towards them. _You need a hand?_ , they asked. Hesitated for a second. Acting more like they were handling a paper-thin set of ceramic than they had intended. _… You can lean on me if you need to._

He had a look on his face, just for a split-second, but it was gone too fast for Five to properly notice it or understand it. Suddenly the runner could hear their own heartbeat. Their eyes had seen the expression and although their mind couldn’t tell what it meant yet it made their heart race. Some part of them already knew.

The water peeked over the horizon. It was coming.

Sam shook his head and raised his hands to sign something back, but let them sink again in the same moment. Holding them close to himself. A half-smile. Something in Five shattered as they realized what they, all of them, had lost. “Th- Thank you. Five. Really. Just…” He sighed. “I just touched Ian after he fell into the zombie pit, I- I think… the risk’s a bit too high, you know? For you to get infected.”

Five knew. Five also knew that it was a shallow excuse. As if they had never had zombie parts way too close to them and still came out of it unharmed.

They thought back to that moment. That one moment, when they started knowing but not wanting to know. Their mind pulled Five there, couldn’t let go. Had to replay to understand it, had to understand what happened and what it meant. 

-

They were back there, the three of them. 

Five really had wanted to kill Ian when they had tackled him in his room. They didn’t even know they had the ability to want such a thing before. Having the upper hand like that, full of emotions and ideas of how to do it – in retrospect, to some extent they understood right then and there what it felt like to have such power. Why it made Ian feel so good about himself. Then Sam pulled Five out of it. 

When Five saw Ian in front of them later, after Sam helped him out of the pit, the journalist-turned-wannabe-emperor now reduced again to the frightened mess he had always been … Deep inside Five did want him to suffer. They would never have actually done what Ian thought they would, putting him up on display, ridiculing him. But even though they knew it was wrong and that they should be the bigger person, a part of Five wanted to just let him turn. 

“Ian. What do you want?” 

The runner couldn’t remember a time they heard Sam sounding so cold. As if someone poured ice water over them, they started freezing in the span of a moment. This voice was the closest to being void of any emotion that Five had ever experienced with Sam. Usually there was at least a bit of … fire in there. No matter who he talked to, no matter what he talked about, even through all the terrible things that happened to everyone they cared about, when he was crying and when he thought he was going to die, there was this spark of life still in there, always. 

A shiver ran down Five’s spine when they couldn’t find it here. 

And then they gave Sam the gun. 

-

Five’s vision blurred, making them unable to see where they set foot. _Please stop running. Please._ Didn’t know whether they actually signed or just thought it. A soundless sob escaped their throat. 

The water, the sea came back, all at once. Crashing into the shore, clawing through the sand, tearing down the trees at the coast line, breaking through buildings, shattering glass everywhere. Washing it all away. Another wave and Five knew what was going to happen. They didn’t want to be empty. They didn’t want Sam to be empty.

“-ive?” He was far away. Five didn’t take the hands from their face, vigorously shaking their head as the tears fell and fell and fell. They cried with their whole body, as if they were a towel being wringed out, forcing all their feelings out of them, water everywhere, trapped in the currents. Full of memories reminding them of what they wanted to preserve for as long as possible.

Steps towards them. Slow. On dry ground. Where were they coming from?

“Five.” ‘What a kind voice’, the runner couldn’t help but thinking. ‘Kind, and inevitably hollow, somehow.’ Another sob. “Hey, Five- calm- calm down. Calm down.” 

They didn’t want to calm down though, resisting the hands softly pulling at their forearms and trying to make Five show their face to him. Sam sounded so calm – too calm – himself, and it hurt Five and they knew it shouldn’t hurt them because they weren’t the one who had to go through all of what just happened to him and they knew the way they were behaving right now didn’t make it easier on him but they really needed anything but calmness right now. The grip around their arms got a tiny bit stronger. Not forceful though, and not demanding. Asking. 

“Please, Five. Put your hands down.” A whisper. Sam’s voice just slightly breaking. “It’s okay.”

And again, so they did. Slowly. Took a deep shivery breath in, wiped the tears from their face and let their hands down. Surrendering.

“H- Hey there!”, Sam smiled widely as Five looked back at him, and the runner sobbed once more, barely managing to smile back. “Good to see you, Five!” His eyes welled up. He still held Five’s hands and Five felt their chest basically caving in. Didn’t know what to feel. What to think. What to do. The water was still everywhere around them, but now they were rooted to the ground, not floating anymore.

“Good …” A short laugh. “… good to have you back.”

-

The waves died down. 

A lot was damaged. Messed and mixed up, and some of it not restorable to be the way it was before. There were traces left that could never be covered up again. But it was alright. With time they would become just as part of the surviving landscape as everything else. 

And after all the shore wasn’t empty.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on like 4 hours of sleep cause I couldn't stop thinking about anything else. Also my first fanfic in a loooong time so how do you summary? x)
> 
> As you can see... I'm trying to be hopeful for Season 6 but I'm also really really scared... Like... I'm just having a bad feeling because of all this, idk. But I'm also very emotional and I easily exaggerate~
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this far ♥


End file.
